Texas Tech football: 3 Kentucky stars Red Raider fans need to know

Forward Nick Richards is yet another elite big man for the undersized Red Raiders to contend with

It’s frustrating that in the year that the Texas Tech basketball team fielded perhaps its smallest roster in memory, so many of the teams on the schedule have been led by elite big men.  Such is the case with Kentucky.

Nick Richards, a 6-foot-11, 247-pound junior is the Wildcats’ leading scorer and rebounder at 13.7 points and 7.8 rebounds per game.  If Tech can’t keep him from dominating the way so many other post players have this year, we aren’t going to have as much fun on Saturday as we hope.

It’s somewhat unusual these days to see an upperclassman leading Kentucky because, in the modern age of that program, the best players have almost always left school after their freshman or sophomore years. But Richards has been somewhat of a late bloomer.

In his first season, he put up just 5.1 points and last year, that number dropped to 4.0.  This year though, he’s figured it out and has been a huge surprise for a program that entered the season with significant questions in the frontcourt.

The Jamaican product leads the SEC in field goal percentage (66.9%) and is third in blocks with 2.3 per game. He’s also given his team seven double-doubles already this season.

He comes to Lubbock on a hot streak as well.  After putting up 20 points and eight rebounds in his last game at home against Georgia, he’s averaging 17.1 points and nine rebounds in his last six games.

He’s had games of 21 and 12 against Missouri, 17 and 9 against Arkansas, and 13 and 10 against Louisville this year.  If Tech can’t find a way to keep him from doing that on Saturday, life will be tough for the Red Raiders.